A warm person, Cristina Almeida, also born in Brazil, helped me straighten out certain aspects left open since the last interview, as well as shed a new perspective in the way advertising agencies work. Organizational culture and the personality of people have a deep influence in the agencies, suming up to the fact that each agency has its own personality.

All my questions were answered in a clear way, and similarly, I could also take the time to inform myself a bit about the work and life, directly related to my interests. All in all, a great complement to myself and the work being done.

*Leo Burnett Portugal is the portuguese wing from Leo Burnett Worldwide, which belongs to the Publicis Group in a wider scale. It is a exclusive advertising oriented agency, also working in partnership with ARCww, a below-the-line, marketing oriented agency. It is also te most awarded agency in Portugal, with several local awards and Cannes’ Lions, amongst works performed for clients such as Fiat, Pampero, Samsung, P&G, Phillip&Morris, Kellogs, Mentos, amongst others.

For university work, I decided it would be a great opportunity to interview people in the field, to also allow me to get a new perspective of what is real outside in the actual advertising world.

One agency that gave me an opportunity was GreyPortugal, from the Grey Group, belonging to WPP. I was recieved by Production Director Rui Santos, who is working for about 5 years so far with GreyPortugal, under the Prod’G wing, the production aspect of the agency.
http://www.grey.com/

All in all, he helped me answer all work-related questions, and also giving me a massive insight into a lot I might expect from my desired work as Art Director, qualities percieved, how the market and world is going about, everything really. Also ended up giving me a brief tour and presentation of the facilities, get to take a look around at how others worked, and the kind of tools used.

Hopefully next I’ll be able to talk with the creative director of Grey, pending avaliable time. Having learned a lot with Rui Santos, this would more be about personal growth and having an even closer look at the creative aspect.

Putting it bluntly, we didn’t win. My mate didn’t exactly take it lightly, me on the other hand took it fine. Thing being that I think the personal experience was invaluable, and I did get to enjoy a free party (for the participants), and the company of plenty of friends and supporters that also went. All in all, a good experience.

The only thing that pissed me off a lot was the fact they never showed ANY work, even the winning works. Which makes me dubious of the whole thing. Thou, with a bit of talking around, I did learn the whole concept of the first prize, which made me realize a lot;

They worked a full campaign also, but everything was focused on the current technologies – blogging, social networks, twitter, youtube, msn, etc.

Made me think, and really start taking notice of the evolution of everything – ours was being too traditional in terms of support, which isn’t bad, but limiting. We should have also made bets in the whole Web 2.0 aspect. Lesson learned, be aware of the best means of spreading a message.

Again, consistency of theme, with more information. To curb the costs, we had to get a bit creative here, so we decided to do 4 variations and stand out more, and make folks look 4 times at the same flyer; also, instead of handling them about in the street, or at the entrance of the university, where people might pick and not really pay attention long enough, or care, we are going room to room and handing them there, where the they dont get thrown to the ground, they stay on the tables, bright and noticeable, and are read, since lets face it, students distract quite easily from the lecturers.

And then, direct mailing, sent to friends and whoever we could muster, especially to class directors, lecturers and the whole 9 yards. This is free, so we just carpet bombed everything we could.

Also a couple other personalized versions. To acquire invitations to the event, an e-mail is needed, to where we can send the said invitation. Unfortunally this becomes the biggest hindrance in the campaign, since handing an opportunity is much easier then asking for action.

Nonthless, its artvertisers@hotmail.com, also the name of our group, Artvertisers, a simple play of words.

Now until the 29th, its all a matter of continuing the RP’ing, and distributing flyers. Monday we’ll be adding a few twists to the whole thing, I’ll relay at the time.

So, lately been busy with a contest. The point being to produce a campaign for an advertising event that will be happening this 29th of may, here in Portugal, named “Publidevoradores”, a carry-over from the french event of same name.

Its an event of light, humourous note, where several ads from all over the world are shown in a cinema-like fashion, for about 5 hours or so in segments of 45 minutes, 15 minutes break, while also having a whole party around it, with the usual drinks, food stands, entretainment, side-shows and contests, etc. The portuguese version is now in its 2nd interation.

Like mentioned, me and a mate decided to grab this opportunity to have our first full campaign ever, a way to really feel the full aspects of an actual campaign (albeit with extremely limited resources :)). Its an opportunity to win, or fail and learn a lot, which basically means there is no way this can be harmful.

Money and resources scarce, we opted for outdoor, flyer, a lot of RP’ing, direct mailing and some cheap tactics to make people take more notice then it would normally be given;

Outdoor

Being that the prizes are both on creativity and efficiency, we opted for the whole Burp/satisfaction concept. And playing on efficiency, a very visible, outstanding and easily recognizeable color scheme, with familiar faces (all but the lower left are from the same university) to better create empathy and buzz – if we play on our “home field” only, we decided to use known elements. Represents youth, joviality, a certain coy, and try to steer off the negative idea a Burp might have.

3 posters were printed, A1 and A3, and placed around where they could be seen the most.